Dry brushing is one of those self-care habits that I could never quite crack for a long time until now…
“When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.” – Jean Shinoda Bolen
Dry Brushing: Let’s Get Into It…
Happy Fall friends! Before we get into how I have consistently stuck with dry brushing every single day for the past 3 months, I think it’s really important to hone in on why I do it in the first place.
Before researching dry brushing, I always knew of the general benefits ranging from skin exfoliation to a boost of circulation. But to be honest, these reasons were never quite good enough to compel me to do it every morning with my eyes half closed.
However, everything changed when I made the connection between the bloat and “heaviness” I was feeling in my body this past Summer and my lymphatic system.
This past Summer, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I was feeling a bit bloated and “heavy” in my body for days at a time. I was eating all the right things and doing the same routines… yet something just wasn’t adding up.
It wasn’t until I listened to an episode of The Cabral Concept titled: 10 Signs of Poor Drainage & Detox, that I made the connection. It was in this podcast episode that he went over the concept of fluid retention and signs of stagnant lymphatic drainage in the body. (If you’re experiencing any of this, I highly recommend listening to it). Suddenly it was at that moment (on a #hotgirlwalk, of course) that everything clicked! This “heaviness” that I was experiencing had to be a sign that my lymphatic system wasn’t operating at its best capacity… so I intuitively took to dry brushing.
A Daily Lymphatic Boost
If you’re unfamiliar with dry brushing, it’s exactly what it sounds like. You brush your skin in an upward motion from head to toe (**specific details below) with a dry brush, and these motions help stimulate your body’s lymphatic system to better filter out stagnant waste and fluids from the bloodstream.
The concept is simple; you wouldn’t go weeks at a time without taking out the trash, would you? It’s the same with dry brushing.
The lymphatic system, AKA our body’s “sewerage system,” is a network of delicate vessels throughout our bodies dedicated to reducing, renewing, and recycling fluids from our bloodstream. This system filters out old blood cells and transforms them into new ones, all while producing new antibodies (from said waste material) to help strengthen our immune systems. How cool is that?
So, when the lymphatic system is “backed up,” stagnant old fluids (resembling waste) remain in the body. This can cause swelling & bloating, unhealthy weight gain, and a general feeling of “heaviness.” Not to mention this stagnation prevents our bodies from absorbing nutrients efficiently.
Now, to be fair, this job of defying gravity and having to constantly push up fluids from the ground up isn’t an easy task for our lymphatic systems to do; which is why we should be doing everything we can to support it by drinking more water, walking more and you guessed it… dry brushing.
How I Dry Brush Daily
For years, I always considered dry brushing a chore rather than a gift to my body, and that’s because I didn’t know just how beneficial it was and how to do it in a way that worked best for me.
For example, typically, we are told to dry brush in the morning before our morning shower to really get the benefits. However, dry brushing in the morning before my body has had time to warm up felt forced and never entirely spoke to me.
Instead, I now dry brush at night after a nice warm shower. Something about this order, as unconventional as it may sound, has really worked for me and helped me stick with it daily thus far. Plus… applying a healthy dose of moisturizer to cap it all off feels like a true indulgence!
The best part is I wake up feeling completely revitalized and lighter the next day, and I always look forward to my nighttime routine. Aside from improved digestion, increased blood flow, circulation, and more, I love dry brushing at night because it is deeply relaxing and transformative. I absolutely love that I can take my time and then proceed into a deep relaxing sleep right after a sesh.
Do it enough times, and you’ll see what I mean.
Where to start
If you’re new to dry brushing, check out this comprehensive tutorial on Youtube. I love how this physical therapist specializes in the lymphatic system and explains the lymphatic system in a way that helps you really understand what you’re doing. She goes over what order and direction to brush, and little details like gently stimulating your lymph nodes beforehand (a method I also learned from my massage therapist).
Click here for Tutorial (New updated video): Dry Brushing for Lymphatic Drainage – Full Body Routine for a Healthy Lymphatic System
Additional video: Dry Brushing for Lymphatic Drainage – Shown the Best way by a Lymphedema Physical Therapist
And if you need a dry brush, this medium-handled one does the trick:
Stay organically opulent,
Goldie W.
